The ecology of dams and dam removal: The Savage Rapids Dam, Rogue River, OR (Part 2)

A map of the Rogue River Basin and associated Chinook salmon runs. Borrowed from rogueriverkeeper.org

By Nate Hough-Snee

Case one: the Savage Rapids Dam, Rogue River, OR.

The Rogue River begins a 215-mile journey to the sea from Crater Lake, the remnant caldera from the eruption of Mt. Mazama in south central, Oregon. From Crater Lake the river snakes through Oregon’s lushly forested Cascade Range before heading through the Klamath Mountains and the Kalmiopsis Wilderness and onward to the Pacific Ocean. Between the two mountain ranges, the river passes US Interstate 5 near Grants Pass, a former timber town and the county seat of Southern Oregon’s Josephine County. It’s near this point where the river seemingly parallels I-5, at which a major salvo was fired in the 21^st century’s first Pacific Northwest dam wars.

The ecology of dams and dam removal: fast times in the American West (Part 1)

A dam on the Chagrin River, Ohio.

By Nate Hough-Snee

When someone asks, “what is the signature of human beings on Earth?” what do you immediately think of? Does your mind wander to vast expanses of land converted to row-crop agriculture? Or do you think of a sea of urban pavement and rooftops? What about the earth’s brightened night sky, as captured from space? What systems have been ubiquitously changed, those large and small, across continents and cultures? Whatever your answer, many people can agree that the landscapes that humans have most heavily altered are those that they perhaps need most – water dependent ecosystems: streams, rivers and lakes.